Lessons We Have Learned from Post-graduate Students

The Statistical Consulting Centre at The University of Melbourne has been providing a postgraduate consulting service for many years. Each year, the service is used by about 200 students who come from a wide range of disciplines. Consultants can assist these highly motivated students with any part of the research cycle, from refining a research question and developing a suitable design to presenting and communicating findings. The rich and varied consulting interactions with these students provide us with an opportunity to observe applied researchers using statistical knowledge to find out about things that matter to them. We report on a survey of consulting sessions and identify important aspects of statistical thinking that commonly arise across the research cycle. These observations help us develop approaches to graduate education that are applied and contextually relevant.